Gerard Houarner

Or…”interrupted by a person on business from Porlock” — sustaining the vision of the story you want to tell as life’s storms rage around you.

Trust me, it’ll make sense.

Quite some time ago in a LOCUS interview, Jay Lake talked about the challenges of containing the story he’s working on in his mind, or living in the “dream world” of his fictional creation.

I’ve always related to the problem, and kept the issue alive in my notes if not in my ever shrinking mind. I know I’ve mentioned the idea before, but perhaps never explored the concept. Also, over the years as life has closed in and its many challenges consumed innocence, insouciance, and energy, writing has become harder, not easier.

The topic haunts me.

One of the many romantic notions about writers is that they rattle off poems, stories and novels in a “white heat” of inspiration, working day and night, chain smoking, sitting in their dirty underwear in small rooms, their haggard faces lit only by the light of a computer screen (a single dusty bulb in the “old” days, and by candle flame in ancient times) surrounded by empty liquor bottles and piles of pristine finished manuscript, until the book is done and the royalty checks are already in the mail.

Everything real seems to stop in these writers’ lives. Children are magically fed, creditors compassionately defer their pursuit of unpaid bills. The sanctity of the torch of inspiration is respected, and the fire is allowed to burn until the fuel is spent and words are forged.

Now, it’s true there’s a least one famous thriller writer who books a hotel room for a few weeks and locks himself away to write a novel. And there are writers with significant others who “enable” their writing by taking care of the little details of life so they can concentrate on living in the imaginary world of their story until the tale is told.

The reality is that for most writers, that ain’t happening. More often, we’re like Coleridge with what we innocently and passionately believe is Kubla Khan in our heads, putting down lines from a (hopefully not opium inspired) dream vision until we’re interrupted by, as the story famously goes, a person on business from Porlock.

And if you’re a writer and never heard of anything from the above paragraph, stop reading and don’t write, but search out the poem and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Romanticism.

So the problem (one of many) for writers is keeping what you’re working on alive in your mind. For me, what Jay Lake is talking about is more than a memory problem of recalling plot direction and character tics. And it’s not “inspiration,” that magical booster shot people who want to be writers wait for so they can produce something when, and only when, they feel like it.

I believe containing the story in your mind is about getting a state of awareness about what you’ve done, where you’re heading, and what you’re supposed to be doing with your story when you’re at your keyboard. Something like an altered state, without the opium. An understanding that certain things have happened and that, because of those things, the blank page/screen is waiting for you to set down what you already know, deep down inside beyond your conscious mind, will happen next.

Maybe it’s a meditative state, for some. Or the “zone” athletes talk about, in which years of practicing certain skill sets, along with instinct, experience, and athletic talents, combine to elevate performance out of the mud of fear, nerves and thought. A higher state is achieved in which the baseball appears bigger, moving slower, toward your gigantic bat which swings so effortlessly.

A dream state. Being “in the moment.” Focused on the thing you are doing.

This precious state of knowing and being happens all the time in life, I think, though we may not be aware of it. I think it happens in the process of raising kids, working, driving, praying. Addicts miraculously rise from their stupor to orchestrate their next score.

For writers, I think it means avoiding the struggle of finding the “next thing” to write, rekindling the fire of “inspiration,” feeling again the urgency of having to say the thing you wanted to say in those first moments you scribbled down the story idea. It means recapturing the magnificent arc of story you saw at some point early in the process, re-entering the dream of your vision of Kubla Khan, with all its shimmering details, its clever references, plot points, characters, imagery and layers of meaning, and dragging it out into the waking world whole and complete.

We want it to happen whenever we write.

But it doesn’t happen all the time. We can’t live 24/7 in the dream state of our stories. Other lives, including our own “real world” lives, also need tending and care. Duty calls. Responsibilities knock on our doors.

Obviously, opium worked, at least once for Coleridge. The “romantic” image of writers that includes empty liquor bottles documents the supposed need for alcohol and other drugs to “lubricate” the imagination.

Certainly there are plenty of literary legends fueled by this kind of inspiration. There’s also a lot of bs, folks claiming one thing but doing quite another because, well, the bon vivant is a cool “platform” from which to sell stuff. Aside from the physically, emotionally and cognitively self-destructive aspects of these habits, there’s also regret.

If you wrote that well when you were high, think how much better it would have been if you were in your right mind.

And then there’s the sad reality that 99.9% of that stuff is buried, unseen, along with the creators. Mostly, at a very young age.

So what triggers these states? What else can we use to find the dream in which we can create?

I believe the discipline tricks writers use – writing in the same place, at the same time, every day – not only helps with production, but it also gets the writer back into the “space” or “head” of writing. It’s certainly helped me at times.

Keeping a Fortress of Solitude, a Batcave, a private space decorated so that it resembles the inside of your mind, is a tried and true. But I’ve found that isolating, at times. Cut off from life. Too unreal, perhaps too comfortable. And sometimes, when illness, death, disaster, financial woes or other big life tragedies and issues knock on the door, the Fortress walls come down, or they seem just silly and irrelevant, both in terms of life and to a story you may be trying to tell.

Music, especially when writers talk about specific genres for different types of writing, also serves as an emotional and imagination gate to get back into the story. I’ve seen candles and scents would do the trick.

There are stories about writers doing it naked, as if getting back into some kind of primal state to get the work done.

But not everybody works that way, and even if these techniques work for the structure and discipline of getting back to the work of writing, there may still be problems finding the dream of the story, particularly when time has gone by or a writer is jumping from one piece to another.

I guess what I’m looking for is something tied not to the act of writing, but to the story you’re trying to tell. An anchor, or a touchstone. A key that unlocks the cabinet through which you enter the adventure.

Well, yes, music works for a lot of people in this regard. Theme songs, like a Quincy Jones arrangement for a detective show, except the show is your story and the theme song is whatever rocks your boat. Alas, most of the time this is not for me. I find music too distracting, engaging me in ways that make me want to do other things besides writing, unless I’m writing a very musical story. And even then, at some point, I have to shut it down so I can concentrate on what the characters are saying and feeling.

I guess one factor in finding the right “key” is understanding which of the five senses dominates your awareness – are you visual, auditory, etc?

I do find getting in touch with the story’s setting a good way to start things up each time I write. Working on a longish piece set in a surreal desert, on and off over the past months (more on this another time), I found pictures, documentaries, even a screen saver all pretty good starting points. I write a lot in urban settings, and I live in a city, but I’ve also done nature settings, and I like parks and country, too. I know in those times when I write in a non-urban setting, I’m always thinking of and remembering the time I’ve spent upstate, out West, by the sea, etc.

Setting to me establishes the mood of a story. Again, I can see how music would be a great tool. But I’ve used, as above, documentaries, Sunrise Earth (HD films of sunrises in different parts of the world), and touchstone movies – Blade Runner, Casablanca, David Lynch stuff, surreal cartoons – running silently in the background to guide me into my zone.

Another way is to start every writing session by editing the previous session’s writing. This is a good habit, anyway, as what seemed like gold last night can turn out to be lead in the morning. But, depending on your need, re-reading the work and starting to tinker with it can get you back into the frame of mind you were in when you were last writing. Sparks fly, connections are re-opened. You’re reminded of things you wanted to say, or why you said such and such. You recall threats, you react to dangers. Hopefully, at some point, you’ll feel the need to stop editing and move into the action.

Yes, I know, there are some writers who cannot go on before finishing the perfect page. I studied under one of those. And for that person, the story was complete in his mind. It seemed like the dream of the story was readily accessible, though I was too young and stupid at the time ask. Most of us are not like that.

The point here is to get back into the overall story, the dream, and not to get caught up in close editing. Unless, of course, you find that to be your key. In any case, reviewing old work can wake up the other part of the brain where the dream is living. Listen to it when it calls.

By the way, I recently talked here on Storytellersunplugged about using “dead time” in your life as part of the writing process. Doing a little editing – re-reading what you’ve written, doing minor edits on the fly on your portable computer, smart phone, or manuscript pages — is not only a smart use of little snippets of time while waiting for something to happen, but it also helps to keep that dream alive in your head. Maybe it’ll make you more motivated to hurry home, or dip into the dream for as much time as you may have, and carry the story a little further along with new material.

The biggest key for me getting back into the dreamtime, I’ve found, are characters. I guess it’s something like an actor waiting in the wings, ready to throw up, having no memory of the lines, dreading the cue to step on stage. And when that moment comes and the floorboards creak underfoot, the actor doesn’t so much enter the play but the character in the play, and the lines flow and the fear flies off and the game is afoot.

It’s not the easy or magical, or nauseating, when I write. But I have found that once I’m “in” the character – I have a firm grip on needs, fears, strengths and weaknesses, as well as a sense of personality like sense of humor, patterns of connecting with others, how they relate to friends or family – I can see and understand the story through that character’s eyes. I’ve done long pieces through the eyes of several characters and never had a problem switching around and getting into the story from their point of view. Their individual worlds, and the world of the overall story, was usually within my reach.

Finding and feeling comfortable with the characters is another story, of course. Looking back, I can see the “failed” stories, particularly the ones that never sold or the ones I never bothered to finish, had problems centering on my lack of connection with the characters. The dream never came alive.

Sometimes (let’s not say often) dreams die when published. They never come alive for other people. So it goes. But at the very least, the dream should be alive for the writer.

Strong characters carry their own atmosphere, bring the mood to the story, invite certain kinds of characters to play with them. Good characters can make the work of telling a story so much easier.

Think of the Harry Potter series. Really, all that fantasy stuff is wonderful, but not particularly original. The magical schoolboy is practically an English genre all to itself. But it’s Potter and his Scooby gang that makes that dream come alive for readers. When I imagine myself writing something like that (and cashing all those checks!), I envy the way the characters come alive for readers, and how it must have been to work with them and letting the story flow from their traits, their histories, habits, needs and fears.

In my surreal desert fantasy (no, really, I’ll talk more about that next time, I really must), which was a pain to write and is still a pain in the editing/revision process, which this column is interrupting so I must hurry and finish so I can get back to that dream, I was only able to get back to it after through the many interruptions I had because the main character had a weight of her own. Sometimes she’d say or do things that completely surprised me. But I had a strong sense of her right from the beginning, and that anchor allowed me to slip back enough times (but not al the time, because no solution is perfect and writing is hard no matter how many tricks and shortcuts you use) to keep the dream of that story going.

Another thing that kept that piece, and most things I write, going and alive in my head is having an ending in mind.

For the desert piece, the reason I even started it was to write about the Caravan of Death. This was an idea and a collection of characters from one of my novels. I always loved the idea and wanted to return to it. I started the story knowing the little girl I invented would meet the Caravan of Death and somehow all hell would break loose. For that little girl to hold her own against something called the Caravan of Death, there’d have to be some special qualities to her, and finding those qualities became part of the process of telling the story, part of the dream.

But a general idea of the ending, in most cases, is part of the beginning of the story. As I’ve said before, the seeds of the end are always at the beginning. They may be invisible, implied, cast like shadows around the edges, part of the background, in the imagery and symbols, but usually it’s there, somewhere, lurking, waiting. You may not be aware of it. The secrets may only be revealed with time, the story’s development. You may re-read that beginning a hundred times before you see it. Or, you may have to go back and plant the damn seed as the ending becomes clear by telling the story. One way or another, the end usually gets there in the beginning.

And I say this not just because I have an Ouroborus tattoo on my arm.

It may not be the ending that actually happens, and in fact, it’s probably better if the ending changes as the story evolves. But having that ending, or just a general idea for how the character conflicts will resolve (where the characters are going in their individual arcs), serves not only as an anchor for the plot, but for all the different levels of the story being told. Having a direction, an ending, helps to give the dream And by general idea, I mean, do I want

Part of the reasoning behind beginnings/endings and characters as keys to keeping the story alive in your mind is another piece of advice that a lot of writers talk about: having a strong foundation.

By foundation, I don’t necessarily mean a strong beginning, though that helps. But, I’ve found to my chagrin, beginnings change. You think you’re starting in middle, like the sage writing advice tells you, but suddenly you discover you need to start the story earlier or, more often later.

And having a big finish in mind is no guarantee that it will happen, unless you’re the kind of writer who lives by the outline. No problem with that. If the outline works, and can contain the dream and make the story come alive in your mind, I envy you. Most writers I know throw out the outline at some point.

But a start and end does help to define the dream. It’s like recognizing a picture, knowing the outline on a map is not some vague blob, but Africa and all the history and pain and wonder that the name conjures.

And going back and making that beginning stronger, going back and revising and inserting and deleting material, even leaving notes here and there for yourself with what needs to be done right in the manuscript (and believe me, I’ve been startled by my own forgotten notes more than once, and slapped my head over a forgotten part of the dream that needed to poke its head out at the place I’d left a marker), is another reason to edit during “dead time” and start writing sessions by re-reading the story.

If you’ve been away from your story for a while, start at the beginning. See if the beginning awakens the dream, reminds you of the things you’ve already written about what’s going to happen, if the characters come alive and fill you with the need to go back into them, and if you sense what’s coming, good or bad, at the end, or perhaps more importantly, feel the drive to find out what happens, in the end.

If you do, then the story is still alive inside you, and the dream waits for you to join in the adventure.

In a recent BBC interview, Sir David Hare, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, playwright, and general curmudgeon, talked about writing –http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/9568401.stm

Brief and bitter-sweet in the clip, he talks about having to write, and writing being one of the most important things in life even as he acknowledges that he makes films not very many people see.
Now, of course, you have to take some of the negative things he says, when his work has earned him a title as well as an enviable lifestyle, with a hefty grain of salt.

But for this little, irrelevant writer, what’s really interesting is his belief that writing, as a profession, is not about self-expression. The implication, at least what I gathered from the clip, is that writing is about, in part, surviving the need to write.

He talked about a writer being at the mercy of one’s gifts and imagination. Writing is about, for some, trying to write the Great Thing, and then, dealing with the reality that one is always at the mercy of one’s gift and imagination. Writing is also about the painful process of coming to terms with the limits of one’s “gifts” and imagination, and the reality that the Great Thing can’t be done.

He also talks about dealing with being judged, which I interpret as being critiqued, misinterpreted, misunderstood or, simply, not being liked. Well, okay, I suppose, though money, awards and a title might go a long way to smoothing out any feelings about a lack of validation. After all, very few people may see his movies, but people still give him money to make them. But for the vast majority of writers, yes, dealing with rejection – from editors, yes, but also audiences — is a professional challenge that must be faced.

Finally, and perhaps most relevant for everyone, is the need for regeneration. Whether you call it being blocked, or running out of ideas or inspiration, or coming to a commercial dead-end, writing is certainly about finding the energy and creativity to start over again once a story is finished, a project is published, and the moment of publishing success, or failure, has passed.

Writing as life is no different from life as life. Denial is a beautiful thing, and seems to carry some a very long way, but as in life, I’m too much a realist to try ducking the stone walls of talent, imagination, audiences or lack thereof. And I am a fan of regeneration, feeding that thing inside that wants to make something someone else might find interesting. Writing as life means having to find a way through the disappointments and failures and keep going. Where? Well, you know how that goes, it’s the journey not the destination…

On a perhaps more inspirational note, Ray Bradbury’s birthday was August 22nd, and recognized in the LA Times: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2011/08/happy-91st-birthday-ray-bradbury.html

Hard to come up with a better example of writing as life, integrating gifts and imagination, dealing with being judged, and finding strength through regeneration…

The world changes based on physical laws and dynamics; people change based on physiological and psychological processes.

How people perceive these changes and react to them is the stuff of, if not legend, certainly story.

A recent David Brooks Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/opinion/08brooks.html) on “The New Humanism” (which doesn’t look like the old or even current New Humanism stuff I’ve encountered) sparked some thinking about people and stories I hope is interesting.

The notion I cling to from the article is that the disasters we visit on ourselves are caused, at least in part, by the “distorted” and simplistic view that reason and emotion are separate spheres.  We trust in and use the (so-called) rational self to suppress our untrustworthy emotional selves.

It’s the “Western way,” I suppose.  And there’s certainly good cause to fear the emotional aspects of ourselves and others.  Lynch mobs would be one.  However, there is also good cause to be afraid of ignoring emotional realities.  Loss of empathy might fall into that category, leading to the ever-popular genocidal binge.

Suppressing emotional aspects of culture and reinforcing the rational has certainly lead to great leaps in science, technology, philosophy.  But, of course, that suppression has certainly led to some interesting choices in the use of said tech.

As usual, my reaction is probably tangential.  Basically, we’re creatures of perception, and all conflict and miracles stem from this reality, the only reality any of us really care about.  If we perceive ourselves to be rational, the world and our own actions make a certain kind of sense.  If we perceive ourselves grounded in an emotional world, we understand ourselves and the mechanics of our surroundings in a different way.  In genre terms, it’s science vs magic.  One door opens, the other closes.

At least, that’s my theory, my understanding of things as I see them today, through the lens of the article, which, by the way, calls for a more balanced and integrated view, a “new humanism,” to save us from ourselves.

Anyway, I’m struck by the power of perception, and the importance of how the individual and group perceives themselves and the world.

Yes, it is true that when someone pushes a button and nukes everyone, or the asteroid we failed to track crashes into earth, or even when the aliens show up promising harmony and technological wonders and then exterminate us from the safety of somewhere beyond the orbit of Mars, a larger reality will engulf our many-splendored individual realities and make all those precious personal perceptions irrelevant.

And it is true we are often smart enough to evade that larger reality, because we built our earthquake-proof reactors close to the sea to make cooling more efficient, or we tested our brand new and exciting vehicles beyond industry standard to make sure they wouldn’t go off careening down highways on their own.

We built community developments on mountainsides knowing they would never slide off during a hard rain, while laughing at primitive people who built stone towns and cities in sub-tropical regions which have yet to show any inclination toward falling off.  Or, we built monumental apartment buildings to house the poor because that was efficient and cost-effective.

Or, we believed certain kinds of people, like, say, bankers, are fiscally responsible and motivated to preserve capital and wouldn’t dream of lowering themselves to speculation.

A priest, after all, is a priest.  A scientist, the same.  From an emotional or a rational point of view, neither should have any reason to act irresponsibly or stupidly in their role.

They’ve got those emotions locked down because they went to Harvard or MIT, and they’re adults, and they’re rich and responsible.  And stuff.

Indeed, until that larger reality actually manifests itself, we stumble along immersed in our stews of thought and emotion, cooking whatever the hell is going on around us into the gumbo of reality.

We reach conclusions, take actions, reap rewards and punishments based on the most tenuous beliefs: we are reasonable creatures, predictable, with motivations and intentions based on the certainties of evidence.  Or, if you prefer non-rational faith, a Higher Power is on our side.

We are certain of what we know, what we think.  And the best part of that is we have evidence to support our certainty.  There are studies.  Sometimes, experts gather and through consensus, select a “best practice” based solely on the scientific data and without any influence from manufacturers, insurance companies, or other entities with dubious motivations.  Sometimes, God just talks to us.

Often, it all works out.

A disappointing percentage of the time, however, the asteroid hits.

We’re driving along merrily drinking our home-brewed or pundit-bought brew, faithfully and quite rationally following our internal GPS right off the cliff.

Back to my clinging to the notion of a “distorted” and simplistic view of separate rational and emotional selves.

What I take from this idea is that, though the percentage of “right” from the rational approach to things may be impressive, may even be much better than some of the emotional viewpoints past and present, what we consider “rational” is not all that it’s cracked up to be.

The same, of course, can be said to those who navigate principally by an emotional compass.

After all, when the asteroid hits, it doesn’t matter if you made human sacrifices or launched nuclear bombs.  Despite your deepest convictions, what you tried failed.

Just because we elected our shamans, or made them go to college for degrees and licenses and other non-shamanistic accoutrements of non-shamanistic knowledge, insight and wisdom, doesn’t mean what they know or believe is right.

Sometimes, I think we’re all just ants blundering around, putting our heads down and doing our individual thing to the best of whatever our brain circuitry and personal chemistry can do, following one another, picking up scents left by trailblazers who survived and came back with the sugar.  Somehow, our combined chaotic efforts result through trial and error in what we call civilization.  Culture.  Flat screen TV’s filled with sports and digital effects.

I think that’s the latest in ant theory, anyway – there’s no Borg-esque Queen directing the hive, just a bunch of organic machines doing their jobs, stupidly making mistakes, and making up for those mistakes by trying again and again until, eventually, an efficient and practical solution for whatever is challenging the little buggers is found.  Or they die trying.

I also like the word “distorted.”   To me, I means there may well be something there in our funhouse image of what is true and real, but what we have not considered, what may be beyond our grasp or ability to perceive, is what distorts the image.  We believe the image to be true.  But it’s not.  And we are led astray, even to our doom, thinking we are doing the right thing.

I do sympathize with the article’s point that the rational and irrational are enmeshed, inseparable, and to think otherwise may not only be foolish, but dangerous.  Reminds me of the “old” humanism, like a ying yang tattoo staring you in the face.

I also appreciated the research on other measure of intelligence – lord knows we need other forms of intelligence.  The research may be a bit dense, but things like the Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence might lead to some creative perspectives on how your particular demon, fairy, Elder God or alien might perceive and understand the human world.  But go to a library for the thing – even the Kindle price is a heart attack.

There are other ways thinking about the rational and emotional aspects of humanity in terms of story and character.

Yes, there are the obvious and massive dramatic and comedic situations to be mined by playing the rational against the emotional, from I Love Lucy to The Big Bang Theory. Possibly, there’s art in their fusion.

And, an awareness of the varying definitions of humanity, intelligence and talents can help in establishing concrete needs and behaviors of the “new” or alternative human and the alien, and the conflicts and possible resolutions that come out of that.  Could be the new X-Men, could be the transformation of Remembrances of Things Past to the Perceptions of Things Now.

How much trust, and distrust, characters have in their rational/emotional selves is a fundamental anchor for their perception of the world.  And from that anchor, as I’ve been saying, all hell can break loose.  From the best of intentions, horrors can come, and from the worst, miracles.  Or maybe something a little less melodramatic.

Certainly at the root of genres like thriller, mystery, crime, suspense, there is tension between the rational and emotional in individuals and opposing groups.  Character perceptions are skewed, “distorted,” by their perspectives, by the information they allow themselves to process and what they do not take into account.

Decisions are made based on incomplete information.  The rational, or perhaps the emotional mind, blocked relevant information and observations.  Perhaps something was missed in the conflict between the two.  Actions are taken, horribly flawed, and if perceptions don’t change and characters don’t adapt, tragedy results.

I can’t even imagine how many papers have been written on the rational versus the emotional in Shakespeare.  The heart of horror is emotion, but getting to that heart may take raging tooth and claw, or the clean, precise rationality of a surgical blade.  What’s a love story without the heart and mind at war?

In fact, if you look at literature – from love stories to war stories, perhaps even post modern lit – you’d be hard-pressed not to find the conflict between the rational and the emotional at the heart of most stories.

Yes, sides may be taken, which may run counter to this “New Humanism” or its plain old Taoist philosophical roots.  True love wins out, or emotional horror, or the logic of the master detective or the science of the future.

The audience, immersed in their cultural perspectives, craves the comfort of the reality it perceives.

Sometimes, however, a certain balance can be achieved.  The audience may get what it needs rather than what it wants and be satisfied – a richer, more complex resolution than the triumph of the rational, the demise of the emotional, or vice versa.

I know, looking at the news, its hard to believe.  Unrealistic.  Certainly not mimetic.

A hard sell.

Whatever story you choose to tell, a long, hard look at the conflict between the emotional and the rational in characters, in the forces aligned against each other in the grand plot, might not be a total waste of time.  At least, that’s today’s theory.

It seemed to work for Shakespeare.

As writers, we think and talk a lot about plot and characters, and how they form the structure of our stories.

What’s common to this, and many other discussions, is the idea of change.

There wouldn’t be a story without change, not even in the literary genre where, like Vladimir and Estragon waiting for Godot, characters might be trapped in the expectation of a change that never happens – but the possibility of change is still out there. We talk about emotional throughlines, or the transformations great and small characters experience through the actions they take in the story. We set off explosive events – change the rules, make zombies and invading aliens or monsters from out of time and space – and make our characters deal with what we’ve done.

Change, whether or not it actually happens, is the engine that drives a story.

Change comes as crisis, as evolution, transformation, as part of a cycle, or a break from that cycle. Change is birth and death, creation and destruction. It comes with shocking suddenness, hard and fast, and in tiny, excruciating increments of pain, or perhaps joy. Change comes with an opening of a door, or one closing. Change alters perspectives, brings character to an epiphany, a realization, an acceptance, a sensation of satisfaction and completion.

How a character (and of course the reader) perceives and reacts to change in all its flavors reveals everything about that person – their strengths and weaknesses, the brittleness and resiliency. What mix of emotion and intellectuality rises to process the change? What is mobilized in the character, what parts go into hiding?

Does the character embrace, or at least face, the reality of the changes occurring in their world, or do they want to pick and choose, stay in control of that change, even if deals with the devils and taking wishes from djinn popping out of magic lamps is historically shaky business.

What a character does in the face of a transforming situation is the story.

Of course, things may not change, inside, for our character. For every end of the world scenario, for every modernist ironic character study, change can be frustratingly remote. We remain human, even when we transform our characters into something else. Because, really, the inhuman just doesn’t translate. That may also be the point. And, there’s the approach to fiction that requires a return to the norm – you’ve got to come back from Oz.

Or not. If you can sell it, then you stay in whatever brave new world you’ve landed the rest of us in with your story.

Maybe.

You were expecting me to change?

My buddy Tom Piccirilli edited a great little magazine a while ago by that name.  Alas, this post won’t match anything he ever published, but a few random sightings of these things on the internet a while back did stir the creative juices (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Famous_last_words ), so I thought I’d share the experience.  Basically a story and character generating idea – a lot of these attributions are pure fantasy or hearsay, but what if somebody actually did say one of these things as their last words?  Who would they be, what would have been the story behind those words?  Or, can you get into your character’s head deeply enough to imagine his or her last words?

Maybe if you dig hard enough, and maybe you’ll find your “rosebud.”

And if you don’t know the story of that most famous of all fictional last words, look it up and check it out.

Anyway, here’s a bunch culled from various sites, emails, posts, etc

Dammit…Don’t you dare ask God to help me.  (Joan Crawford to her housekeeper who began to pray aloud.)

I am perplexed. Satan Get Out  (Aleister Crowley – famous occultist)

Now why did I do that?  (General William Erskine, after he jumped from a window in Lisbon, Portugal in 1813.)

Pardon me, sir. I did not do it on purpose.  (Queen Marie Antoinette after she accidentally stepped on the foot of her executioner as she went to the guillotine.)

I can’t sleep  (J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan)

I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.  (Humphrey Bogart)

I am about to — or I am going to — die: either expression is correct.  (Dominique Bouhours, famous French grammarian)

I live!  (Roman Emperor, as he was being murdered by his own soldiers.)

Bugger Bognor.  (King George V whose physician had suggested that he relax at his seaside palace in Bognor Regis.)

It’s stopped.  (Joseph Henry Green, upon checking his own pulse.)

LSD, 100 micrograms I.M.  (Aldous Huxley (Author) to his wife. She obliged and he was injected twice before his death.)

You have won, O Galilean  (Emperor Julian, having attempted to reverse the official endorsement of Christianity by the Roman Empire.)

No, you certainly can’t.  (John F. Kennedy in reply to Nellie Connally, wife of Governor John Connelly, commenting “You certainly can’t say that the people of Dallas haven’t given you a nice welcome, Mr. President.)

I feel ill. Call the doctors.  (Mao Zedong (Chairman of China)

Tomorrow, I shall no longer be here  (Nostradamus)

Hurry up, you Hoosier bastard, I could kill ten men while you’re fooling around! (Carl Panzram, serial killer, shortly before he was executed by hanging.)

Put out the bloody cigarette!!  (Saki, to a fellow officer while in a trench during World War One, for fear the smoke would give away their positions. He was then shot by a German sniper who had heard the remark.)

Please don’t let me fall.   (Mary Surratt, before being hanged for her part in the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. She was the first woman executed by the United States federal government.)

Now, now, my good man, this is no time for making enemies.  (Voltaire when asked by a priest to renounce Satan.)

“My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go.”  (Oscar Wilde)

“I’ve had eighteen whiskeys. I think that’s the record.”  (Dylan Thomas)

“Wait a minute… ” (Pope Alexander VI)
“Don’t disturb my equation” (Archimedes)
“I’m bored with it all.”  (Winston Churchill)

“Thank God. I’m tired of being the funniest person in the room.” (Del Close)

“Lady, you shot me!” (Sam Cooke )

“This is funny.”  (Doc Holliday, said as he was looking down at his bootless feet while lying in bed. He always figured he would die with his boots on.)

“Such is life” (Ned Kelly, Australian outlaw “bush ranger”)

“Don’t let it end like this, tell them I said something!”  (Poncho Villa)

“Moose. Indian.”  (Henry David Thoreau)

“Don’t worry, it’s not loaded” (Terry Kath from the band Chicago, before he shot himself.)

“Pity, pity…..too late!”  (Beethoven)

“I am not in the least bit afraid to die”  (Charles Darwin)

“Who is it?” (Billy the Kid).

“Why, yes, a bulletproof vest”  (Dominic Willard, just before his death by firing squad, whenasked if he had any last requests).

“I did not get my Spaghetti-O’s, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this.” (Thomas J. Grasso, a confessed multiple murderer, concerning one item he had requested on a lengthy and detailed last meal list.)

All my possessions for a moment of time. (Elizabeth I, Queen of England, d. 1603 )

“I’ve seen many die. The Christians die differently. What is their secret?” (A Chinese Communist Executioner.)

“I shall be with Christ, and that is enough”. (Scientist Michael Faraday upon being asked: “Have you ever pondered what will be your occupation in the next world?”)

Some mornings, when I can escape from the world’s demands long enough to achieve a moment of clarity, or when I’m not too lazy, I seek wisdom in short, pithy bursts, like an expresso for the mind.

Some seek this kind of rush in various scriptures, others in the morning foreign stock reports.  I look for it in the funny pages.

It’s a habit developed as a child, when Hagar the Horrible was the new kid on the block, when Dondi and Little Orphan Annie and Dick Tracey and Steve Canyon were on their last gasps  (yeah, I read the sci-fi DT with magnetic cars and Moon Maiden, which was kinda cool in a pre-Blade Runner kind of way, with Dick running around in his fedora and sharp chin/nose while cylindrical spaceship/cars zoomed off to the moon fetching alien women who seduced wayward young police rookies….).

These days, I set my mental alarm clock to Get Bucky and Dilbert.

It’s weird, not getting your comics from a newspaper.  But newspapers are dying, they’re a failing habit.  Already, they slip from my grasp – I rarely pick one up, anymore, and when I do it frequently remains unread in the rush of chasing the list of daily things to do.  Now, I sit in waiting rooms and power up my “smart phone” and click on the comic application.  There they all are.  So I can catch up on a week, a month, maybe more, of wisdom for the ages.

Well, at least wisdom for now.

Often, the funny pages inspire my psychological theory for the day.  So here’s a link for a Dilbert cartoon that set things straight for me:  http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2010-03-31/

If that doesn’t work, look up Dilbert for March 31^st, 2010.

Basically, it says that leadership is the art of trading imaginary things in the future for real things today…and the punchline is the evil director of human resources telling Dilbert that  he might get promoted if he works all weekend….someday, if there’s an opening, and there’s nobody else more qualified…

Now this management tool is a stone cold reality in most places I’ve worked in, including places where management doesn’t actually have the instant power to promote because people must pass tests and score high enough on them to get even get a shot, or there are strict guidelines in terms of qualifications, degrees, etc..  And yet, people who routinely fail tests or don’t have qualifications place themselves in awkward positions of responsibility in the hope that somehow, someway, their desire for power and money and recognition will be fulfilled.

It’s a little like American Idol (or whatever amateur hour television show is relevant for your media generation) – follow the dream and you will be rewarded.  Or humiliated in front of millions.  Or, more likely, face the realization that the dream needs to be revised just a tad.

Now the relevance for all of this is, of course, in character building.

Characters are the engines that make stories work (if you ignore Aristotle), and characters need fuel.  That fuel is motivation.  And motivation comes from needs.

In the animal world, needs are clear and fundamental: sex and food.  Comfy nesting spots (if you’re that sort of critter), personal safety, personal comfort in the form of getting rid of parasites or staying dry, grooming (for sex) are the secondary needs that contribute to the ability to satisfy those primary, hardwired needs.

It comes down to passing on the species genome.

Humans, of course, are different.

That, of course, is a punchline.

But seriously, humans complicate those basic needs, that fundamental drive.  We dream.  Perhaps in small, cruel and petty ways – we dream of stealing our co-worker’s lunch from the community refrigerator, or doing the “hit it and split” on a Friday night pick-up.  Sometimes in large ways – we want to create a significant piece of art that speaks to our generation, perhaps to generations in the future, or we want to be President to shape the world according to the values we grew up with.

We dream of things that will make us feel good about ourselves and for things that will make us feel like we are better than others, that we are special and different – could be money, could be recognition, could be a role in work or society.

Some just dream of not being hungry, or lonely.

Today’s psychological theory of personality (and remember, this is only today’s theory, because as I’ve said in the past, these things change, just like people…and, deep down inside, they’re all the same and they really don’t change, just like people) talks about motivation as the need to do things today in exchange for imaginary things in the future.

Character motivation.

Working for a paycheck is, largely, not so imaginary.  But that is not always the case, not even in the “glorious and stable” Western world.  You work, and you hope the boss doesn’t disappear before paying you.

Just ask writers who deliver work to publishers who never pay.

(There’s a reality tidbit for those of you wondering if there’s any relevance to writing in this column.)

Working for a dream, for something in the future that may or may not actually happen – that is a fundamental development in motivation that I think separates humans from large parts of the animal world (doesn’t make us “not animals,” just makes us more complicated ones).

Yes, a tiger goes out to hunt because of hunger and may, or may not, satisfy that hunger.

But a human goes to hunt because of hunger, which is a reality, and also because of glory and status and the power he or she believes a successful hunt will grant over others, which is a dream.  And, as a bonus, because humans really like to kill things and exert their power over their environment and may not be hungry or even eat the meat they’ve slain, which is another level of reality.  Or nightmare.

An animal may protect its young (not all species do) because the instinct is in them, it’s part of the drive to pass on the genome.

Humans may protect their young, but sometimes they don’t.  Often, because we are so complicated, they screw it up, in some major or minor fashion.  Sometimes, they mess it up deliberately.  Almost all the time, whether they try or they don’t try to protect their young, stuff happens anyway and messes up the kid in some small or major way.

I’m not sure animals get to be neurotic, or psychotic.  Not for long, anyway.  Unless they’re around humans a lot.

The need to eat and the need to pass on the genome get complicated almost instantly as soon as humans can act on those apparently simple and basic drives.

Amazing, really.

Because we are human, we add layers and mountains and oceans of stuff on top of those fundamental drives.

You can call the dream of an imaginary future faith, or ambition, or desire…whatever.

You can call how humans work to make that imaginary future come true politics, religion, art, war, commerce…whatever.

You can call the results society, culture, government, pleasure, pain, apocalypse, creation, heaven, hell…whatever.

Sometimes you do real things today for imaginary things in the future, and you get the promotion.

Sometimes you do real things today and there’s never an opening for you in the future, or someone else is more qualified.  Or the job gets outsourced.  Or the company goes out of business.

Sometimes, the dream comes true and you wonder (like Peggy Lee…go ahead, google it), is that all there is?

Sometimes, you look at the pile of ashes that is all that remain of your dream and sing the same song.

In the dreams of your characters is the future they want to make happen.  That is their motivation.  The story is in how they try to make that dream come true, and what happens – what changes in and around them – when they succeed, or fail, in making that dream come true.

Apologies, from one who struggles with the balance of dreams and reality, to those who believe dreams and reality are the same…

by Gerard Houarner 

For the recent World Horror Con in Salt Lake City, Utah, I was placed on two folklore panels. This happened on the con’s first night, back to back, after twenty hours of travel and the usual greetings, reunions, time adjustments and hotel issues that come with these gatherings. Much more con and travel time has passed since, so my brain hasn’t been able to quite hang on to every detail. However, I thought that just the idea of this kind of discussion was valuable and I’ll try to share a few scribbled notes and recollections.

This was the first time I’d been on such panels or even seen them at a horror con. I’m sure it’s a more common panel theme at fantasy/sf gatherings, or maybe I haven’t been around for a while. Usually I’m called on to discuss the merits or faults of gore or violence or the extreme, with occasional forays into the process of editing or writing. I was really happy to be a part of this discussion because I often reach into myth for story structure and ideas, and I’ve hit on folk magic and trickster tales for a number of stories.

Certainly horror as a genre, intertwined with supernaturally inspired thrillers and suspense fiction, has grown from folk tale seeds – vampire, werewolf, zombies, ghosts, etc. (even though the influence these days seems to come down to writers second hand through movies and games). Legends and folk tales are the foundations of the fantastic and the dark.

I also had just finished an interview focusing on folklore/urban legend questions before attending WHC, so there’s something in the air. Perhaps, in the visually/viscerally overloaded/overwhelming multi-media environment in which we find ourselves, creators and even members of the audience are looking to connect with the deeper meanings and emotional contexts behind flashy effects and over-the-top story ideas.

The first panel focused on Horrific Folklore (Horrific fiction has always drawn from folk tales and legends – what is it about folklore that touches our psyche?), moderated by Steve Rasnic Tem, w/Yvonne Navarro, Michael Potts (professor and budding fiction author) and JoSelle Vanderhooft (poet and Stoker nominee).

Aside: Steve contacted all of us ahead of time with some questions and asked for suggestions for further lines of inquiry. Then he showed up and introduced each of us himself, having researched our backgrounds. I was already in awe of his fiction, and now I’m stunned by his thoroughness as a moderator. There’s a lesson for panel moderators….

Anyway, one of the discussion threads focused on how intensely grounded most of the writers on the panel were in folk tales from their native regions. Most were from the South, and when coming up with ideas relied to varying degrees on stories and characters they grew up with in their particular towns and counties.

Being a city boy from an immigrant background, I was at a disadvantage in terms of conjuring stories from local legends, but I suppose I filled that emotional childhood void by gravitating to myths. I did get a sprinkling of “old country” stories from the family gathering dinner tables, but alas, a lot of that was told in old-country Breton, the language of adults in my upbringing.

There was talk as well of family specific folk tales carrying fears, attitudes, traditions within the clan – the audience reacted strongly to this idea, offering up their own experiences in hearing about and keeping family specific stories about ancestors or heirlooms.

Steve talked a bit about a book he’d brought along, The Silver Bullet and Other American Witch Stories, an old collection that came out of a WPA project gathering regional legends. You can often find these kinds of tales collected by enthusiastic locals in chapbooks at town bookstores. Tour guides like my buddy Gordon “Space and Time” Linzner in NYC and site specific cemetery/ghost/haunted tours are another way to tap into source material.

A couple of scribbled comments: folklore handles death in ways other forms don’t (JoSelle’s work being an example), and folklore gives narrative structure and meaning to family lives. They explain mysteries.

There was also Steve’s fundamental observation that people will believe anything (just look at the lore and legend that evolves from politics). He was focusing more on the odd connections that are made between doing a particular thing to get a specific result, and how those connections are passed on as fact (Von talked about burying something – and now I can’t remember what! – to help sell your house).

There was also a very interesting ethical issue brought up in the use of cultural folk tales in modern stories, illustrated by the example of a tribe refusing to let an author transcribe the tales they’d shared because they belonged to the people of the tribe and were not meant for outsiders. Certainly many religions have “secret rites” and levels of initiation, with private stories meant to carry on particular lessons and beliefs.

The second panel, Urban Legends as Fodder for Horror Stories, included Hank Schwaeble, Steven Shrewsbury, Nate Southard, with Weston Ochse as moderator.

Second aside: “Moderator” – yeah, right – I arrive seconds late and the bunch of them say I’m supposed to moderate, like I don’t work every day in a psychiatric hospital and can’t handle warped reality, so I play along and have them introduce themselves and ask a question and make some comments, and in pretty short order the lawyer among us is taking over as lawyers do and the panel is flying.

Afterwards someone from the audience congratulated me on a well-run panel, so I’ll take that as strange little convention panel folktale to pass along to others as a warning – always be first at the table at the front of the room, and don’t trust three guys with last names all beginning with “S” when they’re teamed with another guy whose last name sounds like the name of a tree.

Anyway, the panel debated the meaning of urban legends, as well as the relationship between urban legends and folklore. I thought folklore had a more cultural context and mission in terms of communicating beliefs, values, history, knowledge over generations, while urban legends (a term which irritates me because these “modern” legends are not necessarily “urban”) were more recent, and associated with the mysteries of technology and modern living (alien abduction and alligators in the sewers). College campuses were identified as a huge vector for transmission of these viral legends. I thought The X-Files was pretty much an encyclopedia of urban legends, from conspiracies to aliens to toilet monsters.

Science is the new magic? Well, maybe pseudo science, like the uncorroborated “facts and findings” that worm themselves into the heart of personal financial or health or even governmental policy decisions.

As with the first panel, this one was very well attended with a free flow of thoughts between panelists and audience. Once again, most of the writers were passionate about grounding their stories in some kind of folklore, either “real” as in the kind to be found already circulating out in the world, or made up for use in the story.

I suppose in a publishing world where procedurals, serial killers, detectives and criminal suspense seem to be taken a bit more seriously and are perhaps more popular because, of course, they are “realistic,” I found it refreshing to return to primal metaphors for human darkness. Certainly the roots of modern storytelling are in the campfire explanations offered by the first masters of language to listeners eager to understand both the mysteries of their existence and the night sounds coming from just outside the circle of their flickering light. The experience renewed my hope that not all things supernatural and mythic are destined for the scrap heap.

By the way, hi to the SU crowd I ran into at WHC – Mort, Richard, Brian, Deborah – and sorry I missed Alexandra and Cody (I think I missed you guys, though maybe I just don’t remember because, well, like I said, con and travel time, etc — and what happens at these conventions stays there …right?).